Many people associate horror with spooky tales of the supernatural: ghosts, demons, vampires and the like. Such stories are often the modern-day equivalent of old tales about the unknown dangers that lie in the shadows beyond the comforting light cast by the campfire.

But in this modernage, we have lit virtually the entire planet, and so the midnightworld has lost much of its mystery and fear. So others insist they couldn't be frightened by a story unless it dealt with a scenario that could really happen: being stalked by a serial killer, being trapped in a basement with hungry rats, etc.

And still others insist they can't be spooked at all by a story ... but they can be plenty grossed out by one. These people associate horror fiction with the sense of revulsion that gory descriptions of decay and mayhem can create.

Thus, to a certain extent, horror is in the eye of the beholder; it can be quiet or over-the-top, fabulist, surreal, or mundane. Horror sends its tentacles into virtually every other genre: mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, romance, erotica, etc.

The basic qualities of a good horror tale are ideally the same as for any other story: a compelling plot and sympathetic and interesting characters. There should be plenty of atmosphere and suspense; if a good horror story can't make jaded ol' you want to sleep with the lights on, it should at least give you a deliciousshiver now and then.

Horror became hugely popular in the 1980s due to the burgeoning popularity of authors such as Stephen King in the mid-to-late 70s. Publishing companies were eager to cash in on the trend, and by the late 80s, bookstore shelves were absolutely flooded with hastily-commissioned, poorly-written novels. The good stuff was lost in a sea of crap, and disenchanted readers naturally stopped looking to horror for entertainment.

The horrormarket crashed, and throughout the 1990s major publishers shied away from horror novels from beginning writers. King and other authors such as Anne Rice continued to sell very well, but the industry as a whole treated horror as a deadgenre. Good novels continued to find publication, of course, but they were most often marketed as thrillers or as dark fantasy. Unestablished writers of works that could be marketed as nothing but horror had to seek publication in the small press.

A few subgenres

Splatterpunk: this term was coined by David J Schow at the World Fantasy Convention in Providence in the mid-80s to describe really extremely visceral graphic horror. Think of the literary equivalent of Dead Alive without the goofyhumor. Some argue that this subgenre is outdated, and doesn't exist anymore because of the backlash against horror towards the end of the 80s. However, there are still plenty of people who want to see plenty of blood and guts and extremeviolence in their stories.

Quiet: the quiet horror story goes about its creepy business without much mayhem or blood. Such stories may very well be otherwise classed as mainstream stories; consider Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", for instance.

Erotic: this type of horror fiction puts plenty of sex in the mix. The idea here is that the sex and desire are integral to the plot of the story, and the reader gets creeped out as much as he or she gets turned on.

That horror fiction deals with subjects of a dark and unpleasant nature is a given; so too is it a given that the writerof horror fiction spends a decent portion of their waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours thinking about and exploring these self-same dark and unpleasant things in order to strengthen and enrich their fiction.

The horror writer has to accept that darkness, pessimism, anger, violence, loneliness, grief (and all the other more unpleasant aspects of life that no one else wants to talk about) will always be a part of their daily thought processes, and therefore, to an extent, their own personality. This eventually becomes something of a necessity, because any combination of those darknesses has to be available to them at a moment's notice when the story or novel demands they make an appearance.

The result (and I'm basing all of this on my own personal experiences) is that all of these darknesses exist a bit closer to the surface than they do with most folks. In order to make their fiction as rich as it can be, in order to ensure that the bigger-than-life events they portray on the page are still very much in touch with life, to some degree or another, the horror writer has to make these darknesses a permanent part of their psychological make-up.

Here's another: Is it possible that the horror writer can end up disturbing him/herself just as much, if not more, than the reader?

Think about it: If something gets too ugly or too intense or too real, the reader has the luxury of putting down the book and returning to the story at a later time, when they've had the chance to rally.

The horrorwriter has no such luxury. Sure, we might stop the physical act of writing for the day, but the thoughts and emotions of the work are still there, churning around inside our teeny skulls in an effort to shape themselves into something worthwhile.

That led me to the following question: Can writing horror fiction have an adverse effect on your life? Can it eventually begin to poison you?

Hell, yes. We've lost too many good writers to suicide and alcoholism to think it can't happen.

But it can also enable you to produce powerfulfiction, if it doesn't kill you.